Thunder and Lightening

I felt the first huge drop of rain on my arm walking back from town this afternoon with my new haircut. I thought a seagull had peed on me.....the drops were so big and few and far between....then I knew the storm was coming with the steamy smell of rain on hot tarmac.....

Thunder grumbled and I raced home arriving at the front door hot and damp. I rushed to bring in the sheets from the spinner in the garden and then the downpour came ....crashing onto the plastic roof in the kitchen...next door's gutters overflowing in deafening torrents above me. When the thunder and lightening cracked the sky open I heard my husband call out from the bedroom where he was sleeping.

 I tell him a war hasn't started outside.... explain the commotion but he doesn't know what thunder and lightening is...doesn't make the connection between my words and what he can hear. Like he can't find a picture in his mind for popcorn - however much I describe it. The popcorn conversation started because he's planted a variety of sweetcorn at the allotment which is meant for popping not eating fresh.....in the end he says he understands....and he may remember it or not ....it seems totally random what he does recall now.

The rain splashes in through all the windows I forgot to close -  soaking the books on a table in my study, drenching the wooden blinds which leave rusty brown puddles on the window sills and smears on the curtain linings. It forces its way though a new gap in the plastic roof and runs down the walls into my row of aprons on their hooks in the kitchen. The lawn looks like a shallow lake.

It's all mopped up and dried up now....and the night I can smell through my open window is tropical  clammy hot, holding its breath before the next onslaught. Like they must be in Gaza tonight.....